localhost

where your community actually runs. unlike some platforms we could mention. (we're mentioning it below. buckle up.)

   _                 _ _               _
  | |               | | |             | |
  | | ___   ___ __ _| | |__   ___  ___| |_
  | |/ _ \ / __/ _` | | '_ \ / _ \/ __| __|
  | | (_) | (_| (_| | | | | | (_) \__ \ |_
  |_|\___/ \___\__,_|_|_| |_|\___/|___/\__|

  a community platform that will not
  get acquired and euthanized in 4 years
  (we hope) (we can't promise) (probably)

🕯️ A Moment of Silence (an origin story, a tragedy, a callout)

Once upon a time, there was a platform called Guilded. It had calendars. It had forums. It had a free tier that didn't make you beg for a Nitro subscription just to upload a video over 8MB. It was, genuinely, kind of great.

Then Roblox bought it for $90 million dollars in 2021.

For four years, nothing happened. Guilded users lived their best lives, blissfully unaware they were a rounding error on a quarterly earnings call.

Then, on December 19, 2025, Roblox pulled the plug. No dramatic explosion. No "one last update." Just a redirect to "Roblox Communities" — like being told your favorite restaurant closed and you should just go to the mall food court instead.

The official reason was something about "unifying the platform experience." The real reason, as far as we can tell, is that Roblox looked at a beloved, functional, gamer-first chat platform and said "yeah but what if it was worse and also ours."

We are still not over it. This README is, in part, a coping mechanism.

So here's localhost — built by people who watched a good platform get bought and buried, and decided the correct emotional response was "okay, I'll just build the whole thing myself then." Not healthy. Not balanced. Extremely effective.

What localhost Actually Is

A real-time community platform for developers, gamers, and creators, with the stuff Guilded had (calendars, forums, actual organization) and the stuff it never got around to (real syntax-highlighted code blocks, a proper Issues board, versioned release notes, docs that don't live in a pinned message from 8 months ago).

Features

• Repos — your community's home base. Channels, sub-groups, permissions, no $90M acquisition required.
• Real-time chat — threaded replies, reactions, slash commands, and code blocks that actually render like code instead of looking like a ransom note in Comic Sans.
• Issues board — structured Q&A with accepted answers and upvotes. Searchable. Indexable. Actually findable six months later, unlike message #4,812 in #general.
• Releases — a real changelog feed, because "we shipped stuff, trust me" is not documentation.
• Wiki — docs that live somewhere other than a Google Doc nobody has edit access to.
• Events & calendar — RSVP scheduling, hackathon mode included, for communities who remember when Guilded actually had this figured out first.
• Developer profiles — GitHub-linked, reputation-earning, badge-collecting profiles.
• Job board & marketplace — post roles, sell templates/plugins/courses, without needing five separate tools duct-taped together.
• Premium tiers — free forever tier that isn't a trap, plus Pro/Team plans for people who want custom domains and don't want to hear about it again.

Tech Stack

• Frontend: React, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS
• Backend: Node/Express, WebSockets
• Database: PostgreSQL (Bolt Database)
• Auth: Email/password, magic link, GitHub OAuth
• Business model: Not getting bought by a company that will kill us in 4 years (see roadmap, item zero)

Getting Started

git clone https://github.com/ChromiteDev/localhost.git
cd localhost
npm install
npm run dev

Runs locally at http://localhost:5173. Yes, we know. Yes, that's the joke. It's in the name.

Environment Setup

cp .env.example .env

Fill in your own values. We don't want your secrets. We barely want ours.

Roadmap

• Do not get acquired
• Voice channels & pair-programming rooms
• AI-assisted channel summarization and smart search
• Stripe-backed premium tiers and marketplace payouts
• Migration wizard, for anyone still holding onto a Guilded export file like a war medal
• Do not, under any circumstances, get acquired

Contributing

Open an Issue before a big PR. We read everything. We are, as previously established, extremely online about this project.

License

Pick one before you ship (MIT recommended if you want maximum adoption and minimum regret).

In Loving Memory

Guilded, 2017–2025. You had calendars before it was cool. Rest in peace. This is your legacy now, whether you asked for it or not.